What could be more symbolic of the willful decline of civilization that this:

"Following San Francisco's lead, Los Angeles County and city officials are urging people, businesses and government to switch off nonessential lights for one hour next month to save energy."

By "nonessential," they don't mean lights you're not using anyway. They mean lights you don't need to perform emergency surgery. In the original "Earth Hour" in Sydney, 2.2 million people supposedly turned out the lights in homage to the Earth Goddess.

Supposedly turning off all the lights will prolong the Earth's doom by limiting the CO2 emitted in the generation of electricity. Breathing also emits CO2. Maybe instead of "Earth Hour" we should try "Earth Minute," where we save the polar bears by holding our breath.

Beyond the pointless symbolism, the implication is clear. If we want to save the planet, we need to turn out the lights on human civilization and return to the darkness for which liberals seem to long.

"Beyond the pointless symbolism, the implication is clear. If we want to save the planet, we need to turn out the lights on human civilization and return to the darkness for which liberals seem to long."

Moonbattery's regulars really have an extreme aversion to anything having to do with environmentalism. I don't get it. Any instance of "Hey, wouldn't it be nice if we try to make sure that we don't destroy the environment around us?" is meet with extreme scorn from them.

> Beyond the pointless symbolism, the implication is clear. If we want to save the planet, we need to turn out the lights on human civilization and return to the darkness for which liberals seem to long.

If you turned off the lights, you might find, to your surprise, that it's perfectly possible to be a functional, happy human being without using the lights. Or all sorts of other pointless, wasteful crap people spend gobs of perfectly good money on. In fact, if people focused on quality more, we'd all be much happier.

Simply put, removing needless excesses is what sensible environmentalism strives for. But you seem so insecure that removing even a little bit of materialistic excesses from your life constitutes a plunge into a dark age. Cry me a frigging river.

I wonder what Van Helsing's alternative is? Use all the power you can as much as possible until there are no energy resources left? Yeah, that'll save civilisation all right. Perhaps VH is one of those who thinks Jebus will show up first ...

"Beyond the pointless symbolism, the implication is clear. If we want to save the planet, we need to turn out the lights on human civilization and return to the darkness for which liberals seem to long."

Meanwhile, on a more practical level: using low-energy bulbs, not using 'standby' mode on your TV/PVR/DVD/Blu-Ray etc, switching to a slightly lower temperature setting on your washing machine, turning it down a notch or two on your fridge - as well as your central heating, to say nothing of switching off lights in rooms you're not using, means you get lower energy bills.

Van Helsing, and the rest of the Moonbatshitheads, clearly aren't Yorkshiremen like yours truly!

But hey, far be it from me to tell them what to do. Ultimately, it's not my money they're wasting!

By "nonessential," they don't mean lights you're not using anyway. They mean lights you don't need to perform emergency surgery. In the original "Earth Hour" in Sydney, 2.2 million people supposedly turned out the lights in homage to the Earth Goddess.

No, I think "lights your not using anyway" is exactly what they mean.

Of course you could just turn off all the lights and maybe light a few candles and bang your wife, but that would require planning and forethought.

I wonder if Van Helsing forgot a statement. I could understand the "Supposedly" bit if he/she/it was arguing that people turning off their lights does nothing to stop the power plant from generating the power that would have been used by that light normally.

"we need to turn out the lights on human civilization and return to the darkness"

Projection much?
That pretty much sums up the fundie mindset: A return to the darkness of stoning people who don't bow down to their desert dictator and turning out the lights on learning.

I could be down for the whole holding the breath thing, though. Except you need to hold yours for 10 minutes. Since that's impossible, maybe you should cheat by wrapping a plastic bag around your head first. Be sure to seal it around your neck with a big rubber band -- wouldn't let any air to leak in.

"Supposedly turning off all the lights will prolong the Earth's doom by limiting the CO2 emitted in the generation of electricity. Breathing also emits CO2."

Generating electricity (from fossil fuels) adds CO2 to the atmosphere, increasing the levels there, breathing does not since the carbon emitted was derived from the atmosphere to begin with.

Or perhaps Van Helsing eats coal? It's probably a step up from 'paste' for him.

The saddest thing is VH probably thought he was being clever pointing out that human beings 'emit' CO2, when of course anyone who had the slightest comprehension of the subject would understand that it is net emissions that count, hence all the talk of carbon capture and sequestration, biofuels, biochar, etc.

It's the climate change equivalent of "Then why are there still monkeys?" A clear red flag that the speaker is too ignorant to even correct, since he/she simply would not understand the correction.

Funny...your response somehow vaguely reminds me of a story my mom told me once when I was little, about a guy who picked up all the bread crumbs and wasted fish people had dropped on the ground while eating, and fed a whole big bunch more of hungry people with the left-overs. She probably got it out of some book. Wish I could remember more about it, like who the guy was.
Jesus, my memory's going.

To be honest I've seen some more batshit. Like the people who announce via the Internet that they will turn on every light in the house in protest.
Or my fundie brother who thinks that energy-efficient lightbulbs are a tool of Satan ... or something -- I can never be sure what the hell he's babbling about, but he hates any talk of conservation.